The Atwood DITFT: Generation 3, Chapter 2
Author's Note: Hi guys! I'm back again! So, yeah, chapters are basically going to be pretty slow coming out. College, haha. But, I refuse to give up on these guys, I just love writing them too much! So I hope you'll be patient with my slow updates... and for now, enjoy! :D
The Atwood DITFT: Generation 3, Chapter 2
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Coming home from school, I sigh as I set down my backpack. I don’t know why I decided to even come here today; usually, I go to my cousin Hope’s house. She lives at the Atwood farm, which is one of my favorite places in the world. My granddad lives there, along with my Uncle Mason, Aunt Alice, and four cousins: Hope, who’s seventeen and three years older than me; Nick, Jr., who’s almost ten; and Alesha and Ellis, who are little and not as fun to hang out with. They also have a bunch of cats. I love the farm, and the big playground they have.
I also love my cousin Hope. Even though we have a bit of an age difference, she’s still the best cousin ever. She and I have a really similar background: our moms were both raped and we were both put up for adoption. The twist with Hope is, she’s my adoptive mother Reagan’s daughter. But she doesn’t know it yet. I’ve known my whole life, but here she is, almost an adult, with no idea that Mason and Alice aren’t her real parents.
Despite all that weird family drama, I still usually like the farm better than my own house. My mom pretends everything is just fine around here, but it’s really not. I have two little sisters, Norah and Rue. Norah picks on Rue mercilessly, but never when our parents are around. The poor little girl gets in trouble all the time for stuff her big sister does. Our parents are breaking that girl’s spirit and they don’t even know it.
The other night I really noticed it. Usually, Rue loves to do projects and fun things during the afternoon, with a product at the end that she can show off to Mom and Dad. They are working all the time, so Rue’s a bit attention-starved I guess. The problem is, they ignore her even when they’re home. Beautiful, outgoing Norah is more fun to pay attention to than quiet Rue with her adorable speech impediment.
But the other day I suggested to Rue that we make some dinner for Mom and Dad when they get home, and you know what she said? “No… I’ll probably just break some plates and get in trouble again.” It’s like she forgets that she wasn’t even the one who broke the plates last time! She gets punished for things that are Norah’s fault, but then she blames herself for them. I hate watching my five-year-old sister think this poorly of herself. I hate that it’s Norah’s fault, and most of all, I hate that Mom and Dad aren’t doing a thing to stop it.
Norah breaks me out of my reverie with a snide, “Oh, you’re here.” Then she runs off to tell the babysitter she can leave early today. I roll my eyes and go looking for Rue.
I find her, as usual, in her corner of her bedroom. “Hey, Jaden,” she says softly when she notices me.
“Hey, squirt,” I reply. “Why the long face?”
“I got made fun of again fow hanging out with James,” she says dejectedly. James is her only friend in first grade, and he’s in a wheelchair. Rue doesn’t care one bit whether he can walk or not, and I’m proud of her for that, but I guess the rest of the kids think James is weird.
“Does it make you want to stop being friends with him?” I ask, squatting down beside her.
“No,” she says quietly. “He’s nice to me. No one else is.”
“Well, I guess you just have to ignore the other kids, then,” I say. “They don’t deserve to be friends with someone as great as you, anyway.” I try to boost Rue’s self-esteem whenever I can; she could really use it.
“And Nowah says I’ll always be the one evewyone picks on. For the west of my life,” Rue moans.
“Why would she say that?”
“Because I can’t talk wight, and I only hang out with losews and cwipples.” A few tears leak from her eyes.
“Don’t ever believe what Norah tells you,” I say firmly. “The way you talk is adorable. But I know it bothers you, and you have to believe me that one day it will go away.” Rue once told me that she never raises her hand in class because she doesn’t like to talk in front of that many people, in case they’ll make fun of her. “And James is not a loser or a cripple, he’s a nice kid. Don’t believe what Norah says,” I repeat.
“It’s hawd, though,” she says sadly, and I couldn’t agree more. Norah has Rue completely under her control.
After making dinner for the kids and getting them in bed-Norah sourly proclaiming that she’ll never listen to my bedtime stories ever again because I always make Princess Blue get the throne and leave Princess Aurora with a few goats, or nothing at all-I head to my room to do homework. But just as I’m turning towards the hallway, the doorbell rings.
I’m surprised to see my cousin Hope standing on the doorstep, and even more surprised at how angry she looks. “Where’s Reagan?” she demands. I get a sinking feeling in my stomach-maybe she finally found out…
“Working late,” I say. “Do you-?”
“I have to talk to her,” Hope says as she storms inside. “My… mother, or whatever she is, just told me I’m adopted! And what’s worse, Reagan is the one who-”
“Who gave birth to you, yeah, I know,” I say tiredly.
“What? How?” she demands. “How long have you known?”
“A long time,” I admit. “I always wanted to tell you, but Mom made me promise not to.”
Hope is furious, I can tell. I’m very glad Mom is out of the house, or she might have been murdered by this girl. “I can’t believe-and she never even-how could she-and Mom, or Alice, or whatever I’m supposed to call her-I just-” She’s struggling for words through her anger, and, I think, struggling not to cry. Finally she demands, “Why weren’t you allowed to tell me? I thought I could trust you!”
“You can,” I say sadly. “It’s just, Mom wanted Aunt Alice to be the one to tell you. She’s always considered Alice your true mother, not herself. I guess she didn’t want to make any decisions for your mom. But, if it helps, my mother has been pressuring your mother to tell you for ages.”
“That doesn’t help at all! And don’t call Alice ‘my mother.’ I don’t know what she is to me anymore!”
“Don’t say that,” I plead. Mom has told me that this reaction, more than anything, was why Alice put off telling her daughter for so long. “Alice is your mother. She raised you from the day you were born! She and Mason love you like you are their own child. It’s not about who gave birth to you, it’s about who raised you and loved and nurtured you into the person you are today.”
“And how would you know anything about that?”
I’d kind of been hoping she’d ask that. Our similar situation was one of the things that made me feel so close to Hope; for years I’d been wishing I could tell her just how much we had in common.
I carefully explained everything to her; how my birth mother, Tate, was raped and left pregnant with me. How Finn took her in, raised me when she was too depressed to touch me. How he and Reagan were married soon after, and both agreed to raise me as their own. My story is remarkably similar to Hope’s, when you look at the bare facts.
Luckily, my explanation calmed Hope down a lot. She was still upset, of course, but I think she understood why Alice and Reagan acted the way they did. “I just wish she’d told me sooner,” Hope said sadly. “All this time I’ve just thought of Reagan as another of my aunts, and now I find out she’s my mother…”
“I think if my mom were here, she would tell you she’s not your mother. At least, that’s how I feel about my situation. My parents have always stressed that Reagan is my stepmother-Tate is my real mother. But I don’t feel that way at all. Tate never did a thing to raise me. I only see her when Dad makes me. Reagan is the one who’s been here for me through everything, and even when I’m mad at her, she’s still my mother more than Tate will ever be.”
“I never knew you were so sentimental, Jay,” Hope says, laughing. That’s a good sign.
I laugh and shrug. “What can I say? I guess I just don’t want you getting too mad at Reagan. She does the best she can.”
“You’re right,” Hope conceded. “Maybe I’m really mad at Mom-Alice, I mean-for not telling me sooner. I always knew it was weird that I had two blonde parents and I look like this. But I never suspected I was…”
“Technically, it’s not like you’re not genetically related to your adoptive parents,” I pointed out. “If you had remained Reagan’s child legally, Mason, your dad, would be your uncle by blood.”
“This makes my head hurt,” Hope laughed.
“Me too.”
“One more thing… The guy who raped Aunt R-well, Reagan. He’s still out there, right?”
“Yeah,” I say regretfully. “My dad’s been working on this case for like ten years. No sign of the guy.”
“Don’t you ever wonder…? Oh, I don’t want to upset you,” she says quickly. I motion for her to continue. “Don’t you ever wonder who your biological father is?”
“Not at all,” I say immediately. “As far as I’m concerned, Finn is my father, and that’s all I need to know.”
“Yeah, and I do see your point-I think Alice and Mason will always be my parents, even if they’re not my biological ones. I guess I just mean… It’s nice to know the names, know who these people were that gave me my genes. I don’t know. I just thought you might be curious.”
I think about this for a bit. It had never occurred to me to care who my biological father was. But maybe… maybe that would be interesting, after all. “I could probably ask Dad, right?”
“I’m sure Uncle Finn would be able to get results for you pretty easily,” Hope says. “You never know what you might find.”
“I’ll ask him this weekend,” I say decisively.
“Let me know how it goes!” she replies. “For now, I gotta run. It’s late, and I’m sure Mom will be really upset that I’m gone… I guess I better make amends.” With a promise that she’ll be back to talk to Reagan sometime soon, she’s gone just as quickly as she came.
Dad was pretty excited when I asked to get a DNA test. He said he’d been wanting to check to see if Tate’s attacker was the same guy as Mom’s, but hadn’t wanted to pressure me into doing anything I didn’t want to do. I appreciate it, but I feel bad that if I had participated earlier, we might have gotten a lead on his case a long time ago.
It took about a week for the results to come back. And when they did… none of us were prepared.
“The results say… Jaden, your biological father is a man who goes by many names… but the one we all recognize is Dominic Avery.”
What hurt the most was watching my mother’s reaction. She stood up from the table, looking stunned. Before either Dad or I could say anything, she walked out of the room.
“Son, I’m so sorry,” Finn said quietly. We were both staring straight ahead. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think anything less of you. You’re still my son, all right?”
I barely heard him. My father wasn’t Finn; my father was the man who had viciously raped probably more women than he could count. And the first woman to fall victim to his evil was the one woman I had always looked up to-Reagan. The woman who had taken me in when my biological mother refused to look at me.
I wouldn’t blame her if Reagan never spoke to me again.
What did happen was almost worse than that. Reagan still tried to be my mother-after that first afternoon when we were told the news, she opened back up to me somewhat-but every time she looked at or spoke to me, I could feel the tension and unease she felt about me. I wasn’t just cute little Jaden anymore; I was the boy she wasn’t even related to, a product of her rapist, and I knew she didn’t want anything to do with me.
I watched her withdraw herself from everyone around her. She never went to visit her sisters and brothers anymore; she ignored the phone when it rang.
Pretty soon, she only left her bedroom to go to work. Once she got home, she went straight to her room and didn’t leave until the next morning. Dad and I made dinner, and he would bring a tray up for Mom while I ate with the girls. Norah and Rue bickered worse than ever, because neither of them could understand why their mother was suddenly dead to the world. Norah, especially, was in shock from being ignored by the one parent who was usually guaranteed to shower her with attention.
“Is Mommy okay?” Rue would ask me worriedly.
“I think she’ll be all right,” I had to say. How could I tell her that I had no idea what was going to happen? That maybe Mom wasn’t going to be okay-or that she wouldn’t be until I was out of her life.
One night, I had put the girls to bed and was brooding on my way to my room. I don’t know why I even bother with this house anymore. Mom’s shut up in her room all the time ignoring her kids, Dad’s preoccupied as hell trying to get Mom to be herself again… I don’t want to spend my teenage years raising my siblings! Especially in a family that obviously doesn’t want me anymore.
Then, I realized I had to ask Dad about a field trip permission slip for Rue. She needed it signed by the next day, and I wasn’t old enough to sign it for her. I headed upstairs to ask.
I was about to knock on the door to my parents’ room when I heard Mom talking. “I know it’s not like he’s any different than he was before we found out who his father is…” she was saying. That definitely sounded like she was talking about me, I realized. I stopped to listen. “It’s just… Sometimes I worry that nature is stronger than nurture, you know? Who’s to say he won’t end up a serial rapist just like his father?”
“I guess you just have to trust him, Ray,” Dad said. “We raised him to be a good guy. Now we have to believe in him; trust that he will follow our example, not Dom’s.”
“That’s part of it too, though… How do I live with myself, knowing I raised the product of a rape just as brutal as my own? And how do I live with him? I sometimes can’t wait until he graduates… It’s hard to even look at him.”
“I… I do understand what you’re saying,” Dad said with a heavy sigh.
You do? I thought in disbelief. I spun around and blindly made my way back downstairs, deep in thought. Dad sees Mom’s point that I might turn out to be a rapist like my father? Dad knows why Mom thinks it’s hard to even look at me? So they both hate me then. They both think I’m a reminder of all the bullshit that happened to Mom when she was my age… And neither of them can trust me.
That was the last straw. My birth father never knew about me; my birth mother didn’t want me. I’d always thought it must be hard for Reagan to live with me, since Tate’s situation was so similar to hers; but now she couldn’t even look at me. But worst, worst of all, was Finn’s rejection. He’d been my dad for as long as I could remember. He’d been there for me whenever I needed him, and now even he didn’t want anything to do with me.
Careful not to make too much noise, I grabbed a few things from my room, stuffed them into a backpack, and left the house, making sure to lock the door behind me.
* * *
What Jaden hadn’t heard was the rest of his father’s sentence. “I… I do understand what you’re saying,” Finn had sighed, “but you’re completely wrong. Jaden is not Dominic, just like Hope isn’t. If you can’t accept him for who he is, and not who his father might be, then you’re no stronger than Tate was. Don’t do this to him anymore; he’s already been rejected by one mother. I think losing another would break him.”
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Well, that's a wrap! Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, with a little glimpse into Jaden's mind! Thanks for reading, guys! Don't forget to let me know what you thought! :D